Thursday, February 14, 2013

Here's a deep question: what kind of relationship is most ideal for free individuals?

If classical liberalism is fundamentally all about personal agency for everyone then
it should follow that a libertarian and anyone wholly concerned with
freedom would be unhappy with a relationship that exists on a
master/slave basis.

This sounds obvious, but is it? Many
traditional concepts of relationships and marriage depend on
subservience and also on the male public world/ female domestic world
roles. If this upsetting to you as a conservative female activist, pause
and think that under some of these older roles, you would most probably
not be an activist of any sort. It is also worth noting the long and
noble history of radical libertarians in the 19th century fighting these
norms, specifically marriage that absorbed women as legal entities and condoned rape.

I
think that an activist, a person who is really trying to better the
world, seeks a companion as an equal. It would be strange to demand
liberty in the outside world and then to have a different standard in
one's personal life. But what does that look like?

A few things most activists are probably looking for:

1. Someone that does not think they are nuts
2. Someone who understands what they are doing
3. Someone who understands why what they are doing is important to them.

I think this is summed up nicely in Rush's forgotten love song "Madrigal". Here are the lyrics:

"When the dragons grow too mighty
To slay with pen or sword
I grow weary of the battle
And the storm I walk toward
When all around is madness
And there's no safe port in view
I long to turn my path homeward
To stop a while with you

When life becomes as barren
And as cold as winter skies
There's a beacon in the darkness
In a distant pair of eyes
In vain to search for honor
In vain to search for truth
But these things can still be given
Your love has shown me proof"

"I
wrote the words from this song and sent them in a valentines card and
married the girl ten years later I have 2 boys and sometimes think maybe
they would never have existed had rush not but she drew the line I
wanted to call my first geddy"

What
someone who fights the whole world and usually comes up short really
really needs is a shoulder to lay their chin upon who then whispers in
their ear, "Everything is fine.", even though outside that moment
everything is not fine. The world may be falling apart at the seams, but
that moment is forever and unbreakable.

So if you are having trouble finding someone this Valentines day, worry not. Nice guys and gals do not finish last. It is also true that plenty of jerks think they
are nice guys/gals. So when approaching the puzzle of romance try
approaching it not as a search for some sucker dumb enough to put up
with you, but from the standpoint of seeking an equal partner in
thought-crime.